Armory is disabled inside all activities with a Score/Leaderboard.

I believe you can still use skill respec scrolls in trials no problem. I haven't tested it since who tf even keeps respec scrolls considering how easy it is to respec nowadays, but if someone has a spare respec scroll, do try to use it next time you do a trial.

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the gane. It's not "alwas use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

You could always create a blank slate template in the armory system.. or an unmorphed one. And equip it before queuing into a PUG.

Most times when I pug into trials the biggest problem is getting the group to work together on mechs and how to get things done, skill optimization and gear effectiveness only come up if someone is complaining that they arnt getting heals..and forget to remove pale order ring.

Stafford197 wrote: »

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

I'm not being dismissive of what you write here. There's a lot of important points.

I think that the massive issue is actually about predictability. Too many players create a build and expect everything to go 'their way' as a result.

The whole point of a random group, is for you to learn and understand that you can never know what each new random team will bring. It's random, so that you'll get a different experience each time. No, it isn't always a good experience. You're supposed to learn from where it goes wrong.

If you want a precision grouping, that requires investment in social networking inside the game with other players.
That has always been the real purpose of guilds. This where you can build predictability, if that's what you need.

thorwyn wrote: »

abkam wrote: »

Ok. But why can't we select any skill morph whenever we want?

Because picking a morph is a choice you make. That's one part of the game. It's not "always use the best one". If you could swap morphs everywhere and instantly, the entire feature would be pointless. ZOS could just combine the effects of both morphs and call it a game.

I don't have experience with all skill lines, but my observation is that most morphs define the fundamental difference between a 'magicka' build and a 'stamina' build. It may be more complex than that.

LaintalAy wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

The OP brings up a fantastic point.

This is a massive fundamental issue with ESO combat balance which is not often talked about. In a truly organized group, everything will of course be optimized. However, in a PUG group or really any group that is not perfectly optimized, there is an enormous amount of overlap in stats and buffs which ruins much of the group’s damage potential.

The most important part of dealing damage is to cut through enemy resistances. This is done through resistance debuffs, but also through the Penetration stat of which DPS characters may have either a small or large amount. How much resistances do enemies have and why isn’t it explicitly stated in game? How are DPS supposed to know exactly how much Penetration they need to bring to the group? It’s so easy to underpin or overpen and therefore throw away tons of damage.

This issue also occurs with buffs, particularly the stronger ones. For example, if you wear a set that provides Minor Courage, your entire set can now be made useless if the group just so happens to have an Arcanist. Or as a DK, is casting Igneous Weapons a waste or not? What about sets which provide Major Berserk - why does this have to make it incompatible with a Sorc Atro Ult?

We can’t put on an Item Set, or cast an ability, or build for Penetration, without potentially having a large portion of the power completely deleted in a group setting. Nearly all buffs have many sources which can overlap and resistances/penetration is impossible to get right without out of game knowledge and specific gear optimizations based on the group.

It’s a pretty deep issue with the game. At the end of the day, this just causes random groups to lose a huge amount of power. Even plenty of organized trial groups I’ve seen tend to make mistakes because they don’t fully understand how everything works.

The solution requires some serious Character Sheet Stat reworks and is not so simple to fix. I do wish this would all change though. It would be great if you could throw on gear, or cast a skill, and know with 100% certainty that you and your group will be made more effective for it.

I'm not being dismissive of what you write here. There's a lot of important points.

I think that the massive issue is actually about predictability. Too many players create a build and expect everything to go 'their way' as a result.

The whole point of a random group, is for you to learn and understand that you can never know what each new random team will bring. It's random, so that you'll get a different experience each time. No, it isn't always a good experience. You're supposed to learn from where it goes wrong.

If you want a precision grouping, that requires investment in social networking inside the game with other players.
That has always been the real purpose of guilds. This where you can build predictability, if that's what you need.

I don’t think the unpredictability of random groups is a bad thing. It can be fun to see what sort of players join group and to meet new people. I think various aspects can make this a good or bad experience.

My post was mainly about how easy it is for random groups to be enormously incompatible. Not player personalities, or a small losses such as a Mag DK increasing enemy flame damage taken when the other DPS is a Mag Ice Warden…. but detrimental things such a player’ entire set 5-piece being made obsolete, or a player being greatly over or under penetrating a target. While you’re correct that it can fall under the Build Predictability idea, this total cancelling of set or skill effects, or a baseline huge damage reduction due to Penetration inefficiencies, is not fun at all imo. It also heavily reinforces using specific sets/builds which can’t run into these issues as much, instead of players using stuff they enjoy (such as choosing pure weapon damage buffing sets instead of one that grants Major Beserk on self etc).

It’s ok for random groups to be less efficient and to provide new experiences! I just wish ESO builds were designed in a way where the group focus is on complimenting each others strength, not calculating how to avoid negating each other.

I guess the current system assumes that everyone arrives with an optimized build but of course we know that doesn’t always happen. I don’t think I would want to change my build just because of the group, though. It might make sense for healers and tanks to change gear or skills, but the dps build states one particular morph for the sills on your bar. In some cases dps use other gear sets to help the group, but my experience is that different skills might be used but not different morphs.

If I change morphs then my dps is likely to go down.